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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   32896 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 5, 2024

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Completely, I don’t think it’s really a useful way of ranking yourself or others. Still, I wouldn’t take lessons on macroeconomics from Musk, whereas I might read what Scott has to say, even if he’s wrong, because he’s smarter.

Is he smarter? Are you sure? Scott has said some really dumb things. Hasn’t really accomplished a lot outside of becoming somewhat internet famous.

Tons of smart people believe very dumb things, certainly if you’re a conservative (most of the very smartest people in the west are pretty mainstream neolibs). I think Scott is pretty smart based on his writing ability and skill at synthesising information in his reviews etc, which I think correlates highly with intelligence.

But that doesn’t mean “he is smarter than Musk.”

Sure building a company isn’t solely based on IQ. But building technically difficult companies across multiple domains suggests some pretty strong intelligence, especially compared to someone who is basically a glorified essayist.

Do you realize that Elon Musk has absolute domain expertise in several, unrelated engineering disciplines (aerospace, rocket engine design, electric vehicle design and integration, and manufacturing for all of these), and that before he got started in his current arc he had domain expertise in several other unrelated engineering and regulatory disciples (software and banking regulation)?

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